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Homeless in the Downtown Eastside: Journey to the dark side of town (with video)

Month living with homeless gives Toronto’s Jay Barton new perspective of life on the street

Jay Barton is from Toronto where he works with the poor and homeless, he arrived on the west coast without a penny in his pocket at the beginning of March. Since then, he's been sleeping outside on the street and in dorms run by various Christian charitable organizations such as Union Gospel Mission and the Salvation Army. He's lined up for free coffee at 6:30 a.m. in the pouring rain in the morning, panhandled, and eaten meals in soup kitchens.

On a cold evening in early spring Jay Barton carried several sheets of cardboard under his right arm. He wasn’t going to turn them into moving boxes. He was going to use them to make his bed for the night.

Barton was sleeping outside on a loading dock in east Vancouver. He was sharing the space with Heath Noble, a buddy he’d made while living on the street.

As part of an experiment to live like a homeless person in the Downtown Eastside, Barton initially wanted to sleep outside in the neighbourhood.

But Noble advised him otherwise. Noble told him that sleeping outdoors anywhere in the Downtown Eastside was dangerous. There was a good chance, he said, that someone might randomly attack him while he slept.

Noble had a better suggestion. Homeless himself for about a year, he had found an ideal spot near Main and 5th. The loading dock he found was high enough so raccoons or skunks wouldn’t come sniffing around. Plus, an overhang protected them if it rained. And by casting them in shadow, it made two guys lying down almost invisible to anyone passing by in the lane.

The forecast was for the temperature to drop to zero overnight. A slight breeze made it feel even colder. Barton was prepared: in addition to two sleeping bags, he wore two pairs of socks, pants, three shirts, a coat and a toque.

Plus he had the cardboard. Barton realized early on how important it was to have a thin layer of corrugated paper as insulation on the ground. Next to the cardboard Barton laid down a thin blanket and then his sleeping bags. Barton’s head was next to the sliding back door. Noble’s, in the left corner.

As Noble smoked a cigarette, Barton got comfortable inside his cocoon. They both turned in by 8:30 p.m.

“At least you can see the stars,” Barton said, trying to see the upside of sleeping outside on a virtually cloudless night. He was right: the stars were twinkling and the moon was a sharp crescent in the night sky.

As the two of them made their beds, they were photographed by The Vancouver Sun. While that happened, a man came out of a nearby door and asked questions about what was going on.

He thought a photo on the loading dock was misleading because he was convinced no one ever slept there. When I told him that Noble had been sleeping off an on for a year on the loading dock, he wouldn’t believe me. We talked a bit more and he went back into the building and closed the door. The incident appeared to be over.

But it wasn’t. Barton said the man came by about an hour later. Barton was still awake and saw him take a photograph of the two of them on the loading dock.

For some reason, being photographed angered Barton. He felt a momentary urge to react – to tell the guy off or do something more. For the better part of a month, he’d been relying on charity. He spent several weeks sleeping outside and in shelters, standing in endless lineups for food, panhandling for cash and wearing old clothes.

Barton saw it as yet another example how your dignity gets stripped away while living on the street. From Barton’s perspective, they wouldn’t inconvenience anyone. They’d be gone early in the morning, usually by 6 a.m. They would also clean up after themselves so no one would even notice they’d been there. The possibility of being questioned and denied something as simple as a place to sleep got under Barton’s skin.

But he calmed himself down. He remembered what his brother-in-law told him: “There are no heroes on this trip.”

Barton’s journey to the Downtown Eastside started in downtown Toronto. For the past decade, Barton has worked with the homeless and the poor at Salvation Army Gateway. He also fundraises for Sanctuary, a Christian-based inner-city ministry.

Back home, he works to break down barriers between rich and poor by arranging one-on-one meetings between corporate executives and the homeless. He does that by organizing events that include bringing the two groups together for breakfasts at The Fairmont Royal York Hotel in downtown Toronto.

For about three years, he’s wanted to get a better understanding of life on the street by living like someone homeless.

He picked Vancouver because he’s too well known in Toronto to pull off living anonymously in shelters. He was also drawn to the unique concentration of poverty in the Downtown Eastside.

Barton is aware of the irony of his situation. With a wife and child as well as a home and career in Toronto, he’s not really homeless. He knows he’s playing homeless. He even expects he’ll be criticized for “poverty tourism.

“If I want to work with this group of people, and get a better understanding, I had to come here,” Barton said. “There is nothing like this anywhere in the country. I’m here as an observer. I’m not here to tell anyone how it should be done.

“It’s an education for me. I’ve learned more from these people and these service providers than I’ve learned back home in a number of years.”

He admits that living on the street will enhance his credibility among the poor in Toronto. It will also help him fundraise and, as he says, convince more of the one per cent to part with their money.

Barton’s own story gives him a unique bond with the homeless, many of whom are battling substance abuse. For about 20 years, Barton was a crack addict. He went through four bouts of rehab before getting clean about a decade ago.

Barton said that all homeless friends in Toronto thought living on the street in Vancouver was a brilliant idea. His business friends weren’t so keen.

I interviewed Barton every Tuesday for four weeks to record his impressions of on the street. He came across as personable and outgoing and totally dedicated to living as a homeless person. He was just the kind of guy you’d want to have as a friend.

One thing he realized very early is that living without a home is extremely difficult. The experience humbled him in a way he never imagined. It’s made him realize that he’s not as tough as he thought he was.

Barton arrived in Vancouver on Friday, March 1. By 2:30 p.m., he was standing in the pouring rain at Main and Hastings in old baggy, faded jeans, a light blue Gore-Tex jacket that had seen better days. He didn’t have a cent in his pockets. He took off his wedding ring too. He blended right in.

He spent his first night in The Haven, the Salvation Army shelter on East Cordova and Columbia. That was when he realized he was no longer being seen as a respected fundraiser and activist. He was another nobody looking for a place to sleep.

Barton slept in a dormitory with three strangers. It smelled of feet and unwashed bodies. During the night, he got a chill. But staff wouldn’t give him an extra blanket.

“I remember waking up at about four or five in the morning with a brutal headache,” he said. “I was cold all night. I was really tense. I thought: ‘What have I got myself into’? This is my first morning and I have 29 more to go.”

After four days at The Haven, he left for Union Gospel Mission on East Hastings and Princess. Over the course of his exploration of homelessness, he would visit most of the secular social service and Christian-based organizations in the neighbourhood ranging from First United Church, The Dugout, and the Carnegie Community Centre to The Lord’s Rain, Oppenheimer Park Drop-in and PHS Drug Users Resources Centre.

He saw how the different organizations operate in the neighbourhood.

“All these shelters have their niche in the marketplace, “he said. “It’s a business. The Haven is geared to a crowd that’s for the most part 40-years plus. Their illnesses or addictions aren’t always readily apparent. They’re broken. They’ve almost become a product of the system.”

At First United Church at the corner of East Hastings and Gore, he said the crowd is younger and much edgier. Mental health issues and addictions are on the surface. It attracts more women from the sex trade and more people with attitude. He saw more anger and much more desperation.

Union Gospel Mission had a mix of older people who have been through the system and know how it works. It has its share of the mentally ill and what Barton called “sad cases.

“They have a lot of crackerjacks – people who reek, addicts, the worst of the worst,” he said. “They know they can go there.”

What’s appealing about UGM, he said, is that every night you slept on clean sheets that you don’t have to share with bedbugs. If you have dirty laundry, it’s cleaned and folded and placed at the end of your bed so that it’s ready in the morning.

One of his worst days came during his second week. After being given a sleeping bag at UGM, he planned to spend his first night outside at what he thought would be relatively safe place at Water and Abbott. That’s when he met Noble who convinced him that it wasn’t a good idea. He invited Barton to share the loading dock near Main and 5th. But Barton chickened out.

“I woke up Saturday and felt like a big failure,” he said. “I hadn’t stuck to my plan. I was really down. I said to myself: ‘Jay, don’t look at staying out for a week. Take it one day at a time. If you can’t handle it after one night, you can go back to a shelter.’”

Barton realized that he was spending most of his time figuring out how to survive. It was only after adjusting to his situation, he started noticing his environment. He saw older guys who looked like they’ve been so beaten down they’re virtually institutionalized. He saw young guys in shelters turning down a day’s work, lunch included. He’s also seen acts of kindness at shelters by both staff and the homeless.

Drugs and the street

As a former crack addict, Barton found himself sensitive to the open drug use in the neighbourhood. One day he was at the Carnegie Centre when someone was chased out for shooting up in the washroom. He knew what went on in the Downtown Eastside but it was still a surprise to him to see men and women using drugs so openly in the lanes and sidewalks.

Drugs, he said, are about 25 per cent cheaper than in Toronto. At Main and Hastings, you can get a rock of crack cocaine for $2. A crack pipe already loaded with a rock is $5.

Barton believes the prices, lack of enforcement by police and the weather are among the reasons why addicts from elsewhere in the country head west to the Downtown Eastside. He recognized two drug users from the streets in Toronto.

“It’s completely different from Toronto,”he said. “There are so many drugs and so many choices 24-7 within in a few blocks.

“If I’d had known about this place when I was an addict, I would have come out here. I wouldn’t have worried about getting busted. People come here to party for week – and some don’t leave.”

Barton said he’s not criticizing harm reduction programs. He realizes the police can’t arrest everyone who is openly using drugs on the street. He doesn’t intend to be judgmental by saying what he’s seen on the streets of the Downtown Eastside.

“In Toronto, it’s behind closed doors and in little pockets throughout the city,” he said. “It’s not condensed in a few blocks like here.”

What’s also surprised him are the constant challenges around food. He’s come to understand what the saying “beggars can’t be choosers” really means. There is very little chance to ask anyone to cook or prepare food the way you want it. When you’re relying on charity, you have to take the food the way it’s served to you.

Complicating matters is that Barton is a vegetarian. He found it a constant struggle to find meals where meat isn’t served. In the prison-like atmosphere in shelters and soup kitchens with its male pecking order, making it known you’re a vegetarian means standing out in a way that’s not welcome. Over the course of the month, he lost about nine kilograms (20 lbs.) and dropped down to 74 kgs (165 lbs.).

“I’ve had staff look me in the eye. I know they’re thinking: ‘Geez this bum, he’s here at our place and I’m about to give him chili and he says he’d like a vegetarian option. Who does he think he is?’”

Barton said his time on the Downtown Eastside has been a spiritual journey for him. Many nights he’s prayed for the strength to get through the night and the next day.

“My upbringing taught me that you don’t judge anyone,” he said. “Just because you have a Mercedes you’re no better, and just because you push a cart you’re no worse.”

Jay Barton is from Toronto where he works with the poor and homeless, he arrived on the west coast without a penny in his pocket at the beginning of March. Since then, he's been sleeping outside on the street and in dorms run by various Christian charitable organizations such as Union Gospel Mission and the Salvation Army. He's lined up for free coffee at 6:30 a.m. in the pouring rain in the morning, panhandled, and eaten meals in soup kitchens.

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